The three most important core values of journalism, for me, are integrity, transparency and equality.
I see transparency as such an integral part of journalism as it’s all about being credible, reliable and truthful. It’s especially important at the moment, due to the concept of ‘fake news’ that is being used to describe a lot of journalism as of late. Journalists need to combat this by holding close the core value of transparency in all aspects of work, to prove to society how important good quality journalism is.
Integrity is what also comes to my mind when I think of the core values of journalism, as journalists must have integrity to be successful. They need to be able to believe in their work, be honest and have moral principles. As so often a journalist’s ethics and morals contribute to the work created.
Equality is a core value of journalism for me, as I think a big role of journalism is to show a completely equal and non bias view of the world, and in doing so, tells the stories of those who otherwise couldn’t have their stories told. I think what is so special about journalism, is how it enables everyone in some way or another to be given a voice, opinion and platform.
These values can be useful in approaching digital tools we have today to produce good journalism. As, along with new technology, comes moral and ethical factors, making integrity a very important value for a journalist to have to enable them to make the best decisions about using digital tools and it what ways. For example, 360 video recording is a new digital tool that is beginning to be used in media more, and ethics and morals come in to play when deciding best ways to go about recording with it.
